Pamela Hoy

January, 1999.
I brought my kodak and packed a flashlight.
The door stays locked 'til I climb in through the window.

I heard they found your body last year.
It was wrapped in a blanket- they couldn't stay here
Where the closet still holds your clothes (and your distant memory).

I'll set my things on your living room floor.
Investigate the cabinets, dig through the drawers.
Looking for an answer in the nothing left behind-
Did your husband steal your life?

I've seen your watercolors.
Your face is blurred in my mind.
If you speak
Pamela, I'll hear.

It really would make a good song:
You're confined to your resting place, I'm living on my own
With quite a few miles in between
(and seventeen years).

I haven't felt much like myself.
I've been drinking, I've been smoking and living on a shelf
Since the asshole at the station said your case had gone cold,
You never left my mind.

I've seen your watercolors.
Your face is blurred in my mind.
If you speak
Pamela, I'll hear.

Because nothing comes close to the truth
That I knew as I walked through your house.
This silence has taken me everywhere but home.